XYLON
The whistle is a serpent’s hiss in the quiet air. My head snaps up. Time slows. The black-fletched arrow is a deadly insect buzzing past her head. Her life. My purpose.
Before the arrow strikes the stone, I move. A roar of pure, possessive fury rips from my throat, a sound that shakes the leaves from the ancient trees. I throw myself in front of her, my ten-foot frame a wall of flesh and bone. My arm sweeps out, knocking her behind the relative safety of a fallen pillar.
The arrow strikes the wall.Thunk.
They missed. A mistake. They will not be given the chance to make another.
They emerge from the trees like poison seeping from the earth. Dark Elves. Not the pamperedMiouguards of the estate, but hunters. They are lean, hardened killers, their violet eyes glowing with cold malice in the dappled forest light. They wear boiled leather armor, supple and silent. And their weapons… their weapons are made for me.
Heavy crossbows, their bolts tipped with a viscous, sickly green venom that I can smell even from here. It is a scent of rot and corrupted life. Weighted nets, woven from iron wireand studded with cruel, tearing barbs. They spread out, a silent, disciplined crescent, cutting off all avenues of escape. Their movements are fluid, coordinated. They have hunted big game before.
My only goal, my only thought, is the small, fragile woman huddled behind the stone pillar. I must keep them away from her. I am the wall. I am the storm. They will break against me.
A low growl rumbles in my chest, a promise of the violence to come. My massive, clawed fist clenches and unclenches at my side. I will paint this sacred place with their black blood.
The first volley of crossbow bolts is a blur. I do not try to dodge. I cannot. My body is a shield. I take the hits, roaring as the venom-tipped quarrels punch into my thick hide. The pain is a fire, a dozen small suns of agony exploding across my back and shoulders. But the fire of my rage burns hotter. The fire of my purpose burns hottest of all. I ignore the pain.
I charge.
The ground trembles under my assault. I crash into their front line, a battering ram of pure, focused fury. One hunter is too slow. My claws catch his shield, shredding the iron-banded wood and the arm behind it. He screams. It is a satisfying sound. Another tries to raise his crossbow. I smash it, and his chest, with a single, brutal backhand.
But they are disciplined. They fall back, reforming their line, losing another volley of bolts as I am distracted. More fire blooms across my skin. The venom is beginning to work, a sluggish, cold weight that tries to pull at my limbs. I will fight it.
"The nets!" one of them shrieks, his voice sharp with command. "Bring it down!"
They come from two sides at once. The barbed nets fly through the air. I spin, catching one on my forearm. The iron hooks dig deep, tearing at my flesh. It is a trap. As I am occupiedwith the first net, the second one sails over my head, settling on my shoulders, its weighted edges pulling it tight.
I am caught. The beast inside me panics, roaring and thrashing against the biting iron. It wants to tear and rip indiscriminately. No. I force it down. I must think like a warrior.
I see a hunter breaking from the line, his crossbow raised, taking aim not at me, but at the pillar where she is hiding. At her.
No.
The word is a silent roar in my soul. I pull against the nets with a surge of desperate, absolute strength. The muscles in my back and shoulders scream in protest, the barbs digging deeper, tearing my flesh to ribbons. The nets groan, the iron links straining. But they hold.
I will not be in time. The hunter’s finger tightens on the trigger. He smiles, a flash of white teeth in a cruel, elegant face. He has won.
And then the world goes silent.
A wave of pure, absolute nothingness erupts from the trees behind the hunters. It is not a sound. It is not a light. It is a tide of silent, hungry shadow that washes over the clearing. Where it passes, the hunters’ weapons simply… cease to exist. The iron crossbows, the barbed nets, the swords at their hips—they dissolve into motes of black dust that drift away on the afternoon breeze.
The hunters stand frozen, their hands empty, their faces a mask of stunned disbelief. The hunter who had aimed at her is still pointing an empty hand, his cruel smile gone, replaced by a slack-jawed terror.
A figure emerges from the deep shadows of the ancient forest.
He is tall, unnaturally so, and impossibly thin, wrapped in robes the color of a starless midnight sky. His skin is the pale, luminous white of polished bone, and his hair is a river of ink-black silk that falls to his waist. He moves with a liquid, boneless grace that is not human, not Elf, not anything I have ever seen. His face is a sculpture of desolate beauty, all sharp angles and sorrow, but his eyes… his eyes are ancient, two bottomless pools of blackness that hold the grief of millennia. His presence radiates an immense power, a chilling aura that feels like a cold, quiet tomb. This is a Vrakken. A creature of myth and shadow.
He raises a single, elegant hand, and tendrils of shadow lash out from his fingertips. They are not fast. They are deliberate. They wrap around the throats of the disarmed hunters, who choke and claw at the insubstantial darkness, their violet eyes wide with a terror that is almost beautiful. They do not die with screams or blood. They simply… fade. The life drains out of them, their bodies crumbling into fine gray ash that settles on the forest floor.
He dispatches the entire hunting party with the contemptuous ease of a man brushing dust from his sleeve. He does not even break a sweat.
The clearing is silent once more, littered with piles of gray ash and the fading scent of Dark Elf terror. The Vrakken lowers his hand, the shadow tendrils receding into his skin. He stands there for a long moment, a being of profound, chilling sorrow in the quiet, sun-dappled ruins.
He turns his ancient, knowing eyes on us. They pass over my monstrous form without interest, and settle on Dina, who is peeking out from behind the pillar. His gaze is not threatening. It is… weary. As if he has seen this all a thousand times before.
He speaks, and his voice is the sound of silk being drawn over a gravestone, a soft, chilling melody.
